From Sea To Shining Sea

This site is dedicated to providing moderate-right opinions, and information and articles that counter some of the nonsense being inculcated in our young people by public schools and by many colleges and universities. It rejects multiculturalism, embraces the melting pot and celebrates the idea of America. *Vi er all Dansk nu.*

Friday, July 31, 2009

Ridicule Will Not End the Issue; Only Obama Can

This post is about the controversy over Obama's nationality.I like to watch the O’Reilly Factor even though I often disagree with Bill. Lately, though, I am annoyed by the extent to which he has tried to ridicule the people who are troubled by Obama’s continuing withholding of all kinds of records that are routinely released by this nations’ presidents. Left-wing groups and media are also trying to tar anyone who raises questions, calling them “birthers” and trying to place them in the same category as the ludicrous people who question the fact of 9/11. The questions about Obama’s history and motives go far beyond whether or not he was actually born in Hawaii as he says. I personally believe he was born in Hawaii, but I also believe that there is information connected with his early life and writings and dealings that he wants to keep secret.

In addition to the fact that, despite the requests from many legitimate quarters, Obama has only released a short-form Certificate of Live Birth (which appears to be doctored and is not a true birth certificate), he is also keeping sealed his kindergarten records, his Indonesian records (some of his childhood was spent in Indonesia with his mother and her second husband), his Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, University of Chicago scholarly articles and the passport on which he traveled to Pakistan at a time when American citizens could not go there (a trip only lately revealed).

In addition, as a presidential candidate Obama was asked for information that is normally released, however:

• Obama released just one brief document detailing his personal health. McCain, on the other hand, released what he said was his complete medical file, totaling more than 1,500 pages.

• Obama refused to offer his official papers as a state legislator in Illinois. Nor did he produce correspondence, such as his schedules of appointments or letters from lobbyists, from his days in the Illinois state Senate.

• Obama did not release his client list as an attorney or his billing records. He maintained that he performed only a few hours of legal work for a nonprofit organization with ties to Tony Rezko, the Chicago businessman convicted of fraud in June 2008 but did not release billing records that would prove this assertion.

• Obama’s campaign refused to give Columbia, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political science, permission to release his transcripts. Former President George W. Bush and presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry all released their college transcripts.

• Obama did not agree to the release of his application to the Illinois State Bar, which would have cleared up intermittent allegations that his application may have been inaccurate.

• During the presidential campaign, McCain’s campaign released a full list of all online donors. Obama’s campaign still has not released the names of those who donated at least one-third of the $750 million he raised.

Ironically, Obama accused the Bush White House of being "one of the most secretive administrations in our history," and chided then-Sen. Hillary Clinton for not releasing her White House schedules.

Democrat political operatives are not only calling those questioning Obama’s secretiveness, “birthers”, but are also trying to link them with the Republican Party.

In fact it was Phillip Berg, an activist working for Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, who first brought this curious matter to the attention of the voters of this country.

If this video does not play go here.Mr. Berg’s lawsuit was dismissed for “lack of standing” as have many other similar suits. After months of little attention, this whole situation became even more bizarre a couple of weeks ago when a Reserve Army Major went to court to get an injunction against an order sending him to Afghanistan because, he maintained, Obama was an illegal president; the mobilization order was immediately and inexplicably withdrawn and the lawsuit dismissed.

Instead of heaping ridicule on people who wonder at all this unprecedented secrecy, the press should be demanding answers from the only person who could clear up all these questions – Barack Obama, the man who promised us the most transparent administration in history.

And the basic question remains: Why has President Obama prevented the release to the American public of his long-form original birth certificate listing the hospital of his birth, the attending physician and the identity of his parents, as recorded at the time of his birth? What information is on the original, long-form birth certificate that President Obama does not want the American people to see?

Note: Andrew McCarthy has written an extensive piece in NRO detailing many of Obama’s past deceptions regarding his life and life experiences. I will publish excerpts from McCarthy’s article in my next two posts.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

If It Walks Like a Duck, It's A Duck Says Ben Stein

Older Americans understand that many ‘old wives tales’ have a ring of truth to them. “Birds of a feather flock together” and “When you lie with dogs you catch fleas” provided adequate reasons why we did not let our sons and daughters associate with bad people when they were growing up.

This is why it was mostly older people who put together the implications of Obama’s associations with thugs, anti-white racists and far-left radicals – with his early refusal to salute our flag. This is why we figured out that he was a dangerous, anti-American and leftist demagogue who could ruin our beloved country.

Unfortunately, it took a long time for others to figure him out, and we are stuck with him until 2012. We have to shower Congress with e-mails and telephone calls until then to stop his programs. We have to rely on a few Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats to hold America together.

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation.

Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Senate Democrats Defeat Needed Self-Defense Bill

One of my key desires in the area of citizen guns rights went down the drain the other day, although I honestly did not think it would even get even this far. There is now a federal law referred to as the “peaceful journey law” that requires every state to allow the legal owner of a handgun to transport that handgun from a person’s home to another home or to his place of business.

Of course, if you have a carry permit, you can only transport the weapon loaded and ready for use in self-defense if the state you are traveling through honors your permit from your home state. Otherwise, as is true in most states (and particularly in states along the Mid-Atlantic and New England), you have to lock the gun unloaded in the trunk of your car, where it is useless as a defensive device, and you cannot linger in a pass-through state.

The legislation described below would have required each state to honor the carry permit of every other state, so that law-abiding citizens could travel in safety.

Senate rejects concealed weapons bill

July 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Senate narrowly rejected a controversial measure to allow people to carry concealed weapons from state to state Wednesday.

The vote was 58 to 39. The amendment needed 60 votes to pass.

The measure would have required each of the 48 states that currently allow concealed firearms to honor permits issued in other states.

It was the first significant defeat this year for the gun lobby, after a series of unexpected setbacks since the start of the Obama administration.

In May, President Barack Obama signed a credit card bill that included a provision allowing people to carry guns in national parks. Another bill that would have given the District of Columbia's representative in Congress full voting rights stalled earlier in the year after Senate Republicans attached a provision that would have eased tight gun controls in the district.

The concealed weapons proposal was an amendment to a larger defense appropriations bill, introduced by Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican.

Senator Thune said later that because of the closeness of the vote, he may try again to pass this needed legislation; while Senator Schumer made the idiotic comment that Americans were safer because the bill was defeated. Only a liberal could ignore the overwhelming statistics in favor of state carry laws and say something so stupid.

Mark Steyn's Take on Obama-Gates-Crowley Affair

By common consent, the most memorable moment of Barack Obama's otherwise listless press conference on "health care" were his robust remarks on the "racist" incident involving professor Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge police. The latter "acted stupidly," pronounced the chief of state. The president of the United States may be reluctant to condemn Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Chávez or that guy in Honduras without examining all the nuances and footnotes, but sometimes there are outrages so heinous that even the famously nuanced must step up to the plate and speak truth to power. And thank God the leader of the free world had the guts to stand up and speak truth to municipal police Sgt. James Crowley.

For everyone other than the president, what happened at professor Gates' house is not entirely clear. The Harvard prof returned home without his keys and, as Obama put it, "jimmied his way into the house." A neighbor, witnessing the "break-in," called the cops, and things, ah, escalated from there. Professor Gates is now saying that, if Sgt. Crowley publicly apologizes for his racism, the prof will graciously agree to "educate him about the history of racism in America." Which is a helluva deal. I mean, Ivy League parents remortgage their homes to pay Gates for the privilege of lecturing their kids, and here he is offering to hector it away to some no-name lunkhead for free.

As to the differences between the professor's and the cops' version of events, I confess I've been wary of taking Henry Louis Gates at his word ever since, almost two decades back, the literary scholar compared the lyrics of the rap group 2 Live Crew to those of the Bard of Avon. "It's like Shakespeare's 'My love is like a red, red rose,'" he declared, authoritatively, to a court in Fort Lauderdale.

As it happens, "My luv's like a red, red rose" was written by Robbie Burns, a couple of centuries after Shakespeare. Oh, well. 16th century English playwright, 18th century Scottish poet: What's the diff? Evidently being within the same quarter-millennium and right general patch of the North-East Atlantic is close enough for a professor of English and Afro-American Studies appearing as an expert witness in a court case. Certainly no journalist reporting Gates' testimony was boorish enough to point out the misattribution.

I hasten to add I have nothing against the great man. He's always struck me as one of those faintly absurd figures in which the American academy appears to specialize, but relatively harmless by overall standards. And I certainly sympathize with the general proposition that not all encounters with the constabulary go as agreeably as one might wish. Last year I had a minor interaction with a Vermont state trooper, and, 60 seconds into the conversation, he called me a "liar." I considered my options:

Option a): I could get hot under the collar, yell at him, get tasered into submission and possibly shot while "resisting arrest";

Option b): I could politely tell the trooper I object to his characterization, and then write a letter to the commander of his barracks the following morning suggesting that such language is not appropriate to routine encounters with members of the public and betrays a profoundly defective understanding of the relationship between law enforcement officials and the citizenry in civilized societies.

I chose the latter course, and received a letter back offering partial satisfaction and explaining that the trooper would be receiving "supervisory performance-related issue-counseling," which, with any luck, is even more ghastly than it sounds and hopefully is still ongoing.

Professor Gates chose option a), which is just plain stupid. For one thing, these days they have dash-cams and two-way radios and a GPS gizmo in the sharp end of the billy club, so an awful lot of this stuff winds up being preserved on tape, and, if you're the one a-hootin' an' a-hollerin', it's not going to help. In the Sixties, the great English satirist Peter Simple invented the Prejudometer, which simply by being pointed at any individual could calculate degrees of racism to the nearest prejudon, "the internationally recognized scientific unit of racial prejudice."

Professor Gates seems to go around with his Prejudometer permanently cranked up to 11: When Sgt. Crowley announced through the glass-paneled front door that he was here to investigate a break-in, Gates opened it up and roared back: "Why? Because I'm a black man in America?"

Gates then told him, "I'll speak with your mama outside." Outside, Sgt. Crowley's mama failed to show. But among his colleagues were a black officer and a Hispanic officer. Which is an odd kind of posse for what the Rev. Al Sharpton calls, inevitably, "the highest example of racial profiling I have seen." But what of our post-racial president? After noting that "'Skip' Gates is a friend" of his, President Obama said that "there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

But, if they're being "disproportionately" stopped by African American and Latino cops, does that really fall under the category of systemic racism? Short of dispatching one of those Uighur Muslims from China recently liberated from Gitmo by Obama to frolic and gambol on the beaches of Bermuda, the assembled officers were a veritable rainbow coalition. The photograph of the arrest shows a bullet-headed black cop – Sgt. Leon Lashley, I believe – standing in front of the porch while behind him a handcuffed Gates yells accusations of racism. This is the pitiful state the Bull Connors of the 21st century are reduced to, forced to take along a squad recruited from the nearest Benetton ad when they go out to whup some uppity Negro boy.

As professor Gates jeered at the officers, "You don't know who you're messin' with." Did Sgt. Crowley have to arrest him? Probably not. Did he allow himself to be provoked by an obnoxious buffoon? Maybe. I dunno. I wasn't there. Neither was the president of the United States, or the governor of Massachusetts or the mayor of Cambridge. All of whom have declared themselves firmly on the side of the Ivy League bigshot. And all of whom, as it happens, are African American. A black president, a black governor and a black mayor all agree with a black Harvard professor that he was racially profiled by a white-Latino-black police team, headed by a cop who teaches courses in how to avoid racial profiling. The boundless elasticity of such endemic racism suggests that the "post-racial America" will be living with blowhard grievance-mongers like professor Gates unto the end of time.

In a fairly typical "he said/VIP said" incident, the VIP was the author of his own misfortune but, with characteristic arrogance, chose to ascribe it to systemic racism, Jim Crow, lynchings, the Klan, slavery, Jefferson impregnating Sally Hemmings, etc. And so it goes, now and forever. My advice to professor Gates for future incidents would be to establish his authority early. Quote Shakespeare, from his early days with Hallmark:

Friday, July 24, 2009

Democrats Won't Let Republicans Mail This Chart

This the the chart that reflects the federal healthcare mishmash that Democrats are trying to ram through Congress. When Republicans tried to mail a copy of this chart to their constituents, the Democrat leadership stopped them.LEFT CLICK TO ENLARGE

Thursday, July 23, 2009

So Who Is the Racist, President Obama or Sergeant Crowley?

Since Obama injected a comment yesterday that the Cambridge police were ‘stupid’ for arresting a black man, and raised a trivial altercation into a national issue, I will assume my readers are now well aware of the incident.

A few observations:1. There had previously been a housebreak at Gates’ home.2. A neighbor of Gates called the police to report a possible break-in by two large black men.3. Police normally handcuff arrested suspects.4. After identifying Gates, police procedure is to make sure there is no intruder in the house.

In further defense of Sergeant Crowley, the very liberal Boston Globe published this report today:

Sergeant at eye of storm says he won't apologize

By Globe Staff | July 23, 2009

This story was reported by Jonathan Saltzman, John R. Ellement, and Erica Noonan of the Globe Staff. It was written by Saltzman.

When Sergeant James M. Crowley climbed the front steps of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s house last week and unexpectedly placed himself in international headlines, it was not the first time he had a memorable encounter in the line of duty with a prominent black man. Nearly 16 years ago, as a Brandeis University police officer, Crowley desperately tried to save the life of Reggie Lewis after the Boston Celtics star collapsed while practicing in the school gym.

“It bothers him terribly that he couldn’t save him,’’ Crowley’s 74-year-old mother, Verina Crowley, said yesterday, speaking of her son and the famous basketball player.

Yesterday, as President Obama condemned the Cambridge Police Department during a prime-time White House news conference and Crowley steadfastly refused to issue the apol ogy that Gates has sought, a fuller picture began to emerge of the 42-year-old sergeant who arrested the Harvard scholar last week on a charge of disorderly conduct on the porch of Gates’s Cambridge house.

Crowley was a certified emergency medical technician when he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Lewis, to no avail, after the player’s heart stopped on July 27, 1993. In a Globe interview later that day, Crowley said he rushed to the university’s Shapiro Gymnasium, confirmed that Lewis had no pulse, and frantically tried to revive him.

“I just kept on going,’’ he said. “I just kept thinking, ‘Don’t let him die - just don’t die.’ ’’

Now, 16 years later, he stands accused of racism by Gates, one of the foremost scholars on race in America. Gates had just arrived home to his Cambridge house from a trip abroad to find his front door stuck shut. As he and the driver who brought him from the airport tried to push it open, a passerby called police with a report of a possible break-in. Crowley arrived and demanded that Gates, now inside, show him identification. Crowley’s police report said Gates behaved belligerently when he questioned him, which Gates denied. Authorities dropped the charge Tuesday after it ignited accusations of racism.

But people who know Crowley were skeptical or outright dismissive of allegations of racism. A prominent defense lawyer, a neighbor of Crowley’s, his union, and fellow officers described him yesterday as a respected, and respectful, officer who performs his job well and has led his colleagues in diversity training.

“He’s evenhanded and, in the cases I’ve had with him, he’s been very much in control and very professional,’’ said Joseph W. Monahan III, a criminal defense lawyer in Cambridge and former Middlesex County prosecutor. Monahan has represented several defendants arrested by Crowley for domestic assaults and for drunken driving.

Crowley himself, speaking to the Globe yesterday and again last night in Natick, said he will not apologize and asserted, “I am not a racist.’’

Crowley’s police union issued a statement saying it had reviewed the arrest of Gates and expressed “full and unqualified support’’ for his actions.

“Sergeant Crowley is a highly respected veteran supervisor with a distinguished record in the Cambridge Police Department,’’ said the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association. “His actions at the scene of this matter were consistent with his training, with the informed policies and practices of the Department, and with applicable legal standards.’’

The city’s Police Review and Advisory Board, which is independent of the Police Department, has set a meeting July 29 to decide whether to launch a formal inquiry into the incident, according to board investigator Joseph Johnson. He said Gates had not filed a complaint with the board and that no one has filed a complaint against Crowley in the last 12 months.

Crowley, during one of the interviews outside his South Natick home, said he was not authorized to discuss the controversy.

“As much as I’d like to respond, I really can’t,’’ said the married father of three, who coaches youth basketball and plays on a local softball team.

His neighbor Ed Shagory, a retired lawyer, was less reticent. He said he has been friends with Crowley for more than 17 years, and “I think the world of him and his family.’’

Shagory said he was upset by the criticism leveled against the officer and questioned Gates’s statement that the confrontation had inspired the Harvard professor to consider making a documentary about racial profiling.

“I think the idea of him already planning a documentary is very premature, and a very unnecessary thing to say before all the facts are even in,’’ Shagory said.Crowley joined Cambridge police around 1998, according to Sergeant James DeFrancesco, an aide to police Commissioner Robert C. Haas, who was unavailable for comment.

Verina Crowley said James is the third of her four sons, all in law enforcement. Two brothers, Jack and Joseph, also work for the Cambridge police. The fourth, Daniel, is a Middlesex County deputy sheriff.

Verina Crowley said her sons were raised mostly in the Fresh Pond neighborhood where she still lives, attended racially diverse Cambridge public schools, and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, where she worked for 26 years.

“He is not a racist,’’ she said in the hallway of her home. And Gates “is not the first black person he ever met in his life.’’

Her children, she said, had black friends over to their home while growing up. James Crowley is still friends with one of those youngsters, now a Cambridge firefighter, she said.

“They grew up with black kids, white kids, kids who didn’t have parents, kids who had two parents - everything you can think of,’’ she recalled. Tolerance “wasn’t something you taught,’’ she said. “You just lived it.’’

Her son, she said, remains haunted by the events of that summer day, nearly 16 years ago, when as a Brandeis police officer he was dispatched to the college gym to help an unconscious man - who turned out to be Lewis.

After confirming that the Celtics guard had no pulse, Crowley and another officer began performing CPR, according to an account in the Globe.

“My immediate indication was that I thought he was dead,’’ Crowley said at the time. An ambulance arrived and took Lewis to Waltham-Weston Hospital, but he could not be revived.

Yesterday, more than a dozen Cambridge police officers working at Harvard and Central squares declined to comment for attribution about the controversy.But several officers, all of them white, described Crowley as a well-liked officer, and one dismissed the allegations of racism.

That officer, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, said, “Racism is not part of it, and that is what is frustrating. The fact that the Police Department dropped the charges makes the police officer look like he is wrong.’’

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Seniors Who Put Obama in Office Will Lose the Most

As Obama continues to press his plan for federally-mandated healthcare that clearly is meant to morph into a single-payer, socialist healthcare program, those who have the most to lose should face the fact that they elected him by staying home last November.

Senior citizens, the same group who couldn’t be bothered to learn of Obama’s true character and plans, and couldn’t be bothered to vote, put Obama into the presidency. It is the elderly who will be the first ones to be denied healthcare services under Obama’s plan, which squeezes out Medicare providers to pay for the plan. It is Senior Citizens who will first experience Canadian waiting times under Obama’s plan.

WASHINGTON — For all the attention generated by Barack Obama's candidacy, the share of eligible voters who actually cast ballots in November declined for the first time in a dozen years. The reason: Older whites with little interest in backing either Barack Obama or John McCain stayed home.

Census figures released Monday show about 63.6 percent of all U.S. citizens ages 18 and older, or 131.1 million people, voted last November.

Although that represented an increase of 5 million voters — virtually all of them minorities — the turnout relative to the population of eligible voters was a decrease from 63.8 percent in 2004.

Ohio and Pennsylvania were among those showing declines in white voters, helping Obama carry those battleground states.

"While the significance of minority votes for Obama is clearly key, it cannot be overlooked that reduced white support for a Republican candidate allowed minorities to tip the balance in many slow-growing 'purple' states," said William H. Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution, referring to key battleground states that don't notably tilt Democrat or Republican.

"The question I would ask is if a continuing stagnating economy could change that," he said.

According to census data, 66 percent of whites voted last November, down 1 percentage point from 2004. Blacks increased their turnout by 5 percentage points to 65 percent, nearly matching whites. Hispanics improved turnout by 3 percentage points, and Asians by 3.5 percentage points, each reaching a turnout of nearly 50 percent. In all, minorities made up nearly 1 in 4 voters in 2008, the most diverse electorate ever.

By age, voters 18-to-24 were the only group to show a statistically significant increase in turnout, with 49 percent casting ballots, compared with 47 percent in 2004.

Blacks had the highest turnout rate among this age group — 55 percent, or an 8 percentage point jump from 2004. In contrast, turnout for whites 18-24 was basically flat at 49 percent. Asians and Hispanics in that age group increased to 41 percent and 39 percent, respectively.

Among whites 45 and older, turnout fell 1.5 percentage point to just under 72 percent.

Asked to identify their reasons for not voting, 46 percent of all whites said they didn't like the candidates, weren't interested or had better things to do, up from 41 percent in 2004. Hispanics had similar numbers for both years.

Not surprisingly, blacks showed a sharp increase in interest.

Although the RINO’s in the Republican Party continue to resist the facts, it has become more and more obvious that conservatives (who polls show constitute a plurality in America) were so disappointed by the nomination of the liberal, McCain, that they sat on their hands last November. Some way has to be found to limit the seating and counting of Republican delegates to state primaries open only to registered Republican voters. In 2008, independents and Democrats gave the nomination to McCain before voters in red states had a chance to vote.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

How Can Anyone Love Biden and Hate Sarah?

Decent people cringe whenever one of the media ghouls, liberal comedians or Democrat operatives make another false charge or disgusting joke about Sarah Palin and her family. It seems that every other day my hometown newspaper prints another, viciously misleading and vile anti-Palin cartoon on its editorial page. I’m a senior citizen, and I’ve just never seen anything like the hatred and slime hurled at anyone like this before. It would be comical if it were not so ugly.

Just the other day a childhood friend who is a well-educated, liberal attorney passed along the news that Sarah Palin had banned books when she was mayor. He had heard the lie but not the truth, and passed the lie along for reasons that escape me. Conversation around the lunch table also referenced her lack of experience. Let’s see now, a mid first-term, America-hating senator with absolutely no governing experience is better suited than a sitting governor and former mayor for an executive position? How's that working out for all of us?

At this same luncheon, Sarah was also ridiculed by another person, who said she didn’t know anything. I tried to point out the comparison to now VP Biden, who made 17 documented errors of fact during the debate, while Sarah made none, and who now makes a gaffe just about every day. Recently Biden, who has proposed splitting Iraq into three separate countries, represented the USA with Iraqi leaders. I wonder what kind of jokes the Iraqis muttered when he wasn’t in earshot.

For some reason, they just hate her, and facts and logic don’t matter at all.

This is not to say that she has all the experience we would like to see in a would-be President, but she is just as much a ‘quick-study’ as is Obama, and I expect that she will be ready and well-versed in foreign affairs and leaders when and if she decides to run again. Her record and her values are good enough for me right now.

It takes years of yoga to learn the posture necessary for speaking clearly with all your feet in your mouth. But for some the skill comes naturally, which brings us to Joe Biden. Those who saw Dick Cheney as an evil genius crouched silent in the shadows of the Oval Office like Nosferatu must enjoy Biden's high profile: he's out there daily with the sunny enthusiasm of Ronald McDonald opening another store. And, quite often, telling everyone to have a Whopper.

The "gaffes," as we call unscripted thoughts, come delightfully often with Biden. The latest: Speaking before the AARP, Biden aarped up a peculiar formulation to explain the need to borrow 3.2 bejillion dollars in order to transform the American health care system, preferably by next week. He said people ask him "What are you talking about, you're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt? The answer is yes, 'I'm telling you.'"

In Vietnam-era terms: we have to burn the hospital in order to save it. Even if that means losing the burn unit.

In one sense, Biden's logic isn't new; anyone who said we had to partition Iraq to save it is perfectly capable of believing we have to dig a deep hole now to keep from falling into a deeper hole later. But how does this fit with Biden's other summer misstatements? Let's take a quick review.

Iran. Earlier this month George Stephanopoulos asked Biden if the US would stand in the way of Israel decided it was time to take out Iran's nuke program. Said the Veep: "We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do ... if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country."

True. But wrong! The sensible thing is to say: "We are seriously concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and strongly support serious efforts to be concerned, in coordination with allies whose serious efforts are concerned with -- hey, is that a mushroom cloud on CNN? Turn the sound up." Everyone knows Iran will give up the bomb, but in their own way: by putting it on a rocket and waving safe journey, Allah-speed. As the saying goes: If you love something, set it free. If the US isn't going to stop them, shouldn't Israel have the right to?

But that's not the official line, so YANK went the collar. Administration officials explained that the Vice President was using secret reverse-talking, and the allies remain committed to a sustained effort to frown and grip the podium while hoping there's no follow-up questions.

Swine Flu. Should we panic? "I would tell members of my family -- and I have -- I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said, adding, "When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft." This statement was so true it was retracted by the end of the day. When the experts -- i.e., cable-news reporters on the medical beat -- start talking about Pig-Pandemic bringing down human civilization, everyone's first reaction is to stay away from planes and trains. But a Leader is supposed to say something calming, like "if you're taking a flight full of feverish travelers back from Cancun, don't lick the tray tables."

The Economy. Also in early July, Biden said "We misread how bad the economy was." This one is a bit different to explain away, since the administration billed itself as having super-genius comprehension of the problem and the necessary solutions.

Now, many suspect, President Obama finds himself staring at a portrait of FDR, murmuring "Help me, Obi-Wan. You're my only hope."

What Biden meant to say, in his puckish way, that they misunderstood what an economy is, and how it works. Piling up a mountain of proposed taxes, mandates, regulations, do-nothing programs and pork unseen in such dimensions since Pink Floyd floated a dirigible pig over an outdoor concert might, in fact, prevent recovery.

So do not criticize him; applaud his palaver, and hope for more. Biden's "gaffes" are anything but -- they're simply what the administration is really thinking. Truer words have never been babbled.

Just this morning, as I was preparing this post, the Providence Journal ran another ridiculous hit-piece on Sarah Palin authored by a senior fellow at Media Matters, a left-wing organization. It’s an epidemic.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Issue of Obama’s Birthplace Won’t Go Away

Fair-minded people are still baffled by Obama’s refusal to clear up the continuing controversy over his birthplace, and by his determination to stop every attempt to delve into this matter through harassment and costly litigation. He is reported to have spent over a million dollars in legal fees fighting the determination of this issue.

His relatives have testified that he was born in Kenya, but not under oath. His original birth certificate has been withheld; what are we to believe? Our Constitution clearly states that a person born on foreign soil when only one parent is a USA citizen cannot become President.

Other citizens have filed suit to resolve this matter; all have had their cases dismissed due to “lack of standing”, which seems odd in a case of this sort. It really begins to appear that our courts, long known to follow election returns, simply do not wish to engage on this matter. Now comes the mysterious case of the soldier’s cancelled orders:

A controversial suit brought by a U.S. Army reservist has been joined by a retired Army two-star general and an active reserve Air Force lieutenant colonel.

Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook filed the suit July 8 in federal court here asking for conscientious objector status and a preliminary injunction based upon his belief that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as president of the United States and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

However, before the issue got to court, Cook’s orders to deploy to Afghanistan were revoked. Lt. Col. Maria Quon, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Human Resources Command-St. Louis, said Tuesday that Cook was no longer expected to report Wednesday to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida for mobilization to active duty. Cook, who claims he is now the victim of retaliation due to his suit, received his mobilization orders to report for active duty at MacDill on Wednesday. From there, he was to go to Fort Benning on Saturday for deployment to Afghanistan.

Cook is an Individual Mobilization Augmentee. This means he’s a reserve soldier assigned to an active component unit consisting of active duty soldiers instead of a reserve unit, which is composed entirely of reserve soldiers. He is assigned to the U.S. Army Element of U.S. Southern Command.

Last week, Cook filed a request in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector represented by California attorney Orly Taitz.

The government, in its response to the suit, claims that Cook’s suit is “moot” in that he already has been told he doesn’t have to go to Afghanistan, so the relief he is seeking has been granted.

“The Commanding General of SOCCENT (U.S. Special Operations Central Command) has determined that he does not want the services of Major Cook, and has revoked his deployment orders,” the response states.

In a pleading revised after the revocation of Cook’s orders, Taitz argues that the application for preliminary injunction is not moot and that retired Maj. Gen. Carol Dean Childers and active U.S. Air Force reservist Lt. Col. David Earl Graeff have joined the suit “because it is a matter of unparalleled public interest and importance and because it is clearly a matter arising from issues of a recurring nature that will escape review unless the Court exercises its discretionary jurisdiction.”

Cook’s resubmitted Application for Preliminary Injunction is meant to encompass the possibility of Cook receiving future orders for deployment as well as to address and prevent “negative collateral consequences such as retaliation against Major Stefan Frederick Cook ...”

As to the retaliation issue, the revised suit states Cook lost his job at Simtech Inc., a corporation that does Department of Defense contracting in the field of information technology/systems integration, because of the suit. It also states that Cook has been subjected to “gossip” from people who believed Cook was “manipulating his deployment orders to create a platform for political purposes.”

Taitz, who has challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed the original suit with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. Two similar suits have previously been thrown out of federal court.

In the filing, Cook states he “would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command. … simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties.”

A hearing to discuss Cook’s requests is scheduled to take place in federal court here this morning at 9:30 a.m.

About Me

Russell Wilcox is a retired college professor who spends several months in Florida and several months in Rhode Island each year, and whose interests include boating and sailing, sports, political activism, ballroom dancing and bridge. He has an MBA from Harvard, a Computer Systems CAGS from Bryant and a BS from Northeastern. He has worked in industry for EG&G and Texas Instruments, operated his own business with more than 200 employees, and served as Director of the Computer Information Systems Program for Stonehill College. An Army veteran and private pilot, he is a published author, and is the proud father of four children and the proud grandfather of seven grandchildren and one greatgrandchild. A holder of two patents in microchip connections and a true product of the melting pot, his father is the son of a Yankee farmer, and his mother the first generation daughter of Italian immigrants who retained their culture, but strove mightily to become Americans, sending four sons to fight against Hitler and Mussolini.